Confirmations
by JibbityJibJob
Summary: A series of unrelated one-shots chronicling the ways in which one Kara Danvers might go about confirming her boss's suspicions – inadvertently or otherwise.
1. Bring Him to Me

**CONFIRMATIONS**

 **Bring Him to Me**

There's an explosion. It's massive, and if the rattling windows in your office hadn't been enough evidence of its size, the plume of black smoke rising into the sky above the buildings in the distance would surely do the trick.

Your heart jolts in your chest. There are thousands of buildings in that direction, dozens in that general area, but your mind leaps straight to your son on his first day at his new school.

You rip yourself away from your balcony and stare at the wall of monitors behind your desk. Slowly, more slowly than you need, and yet more quickly than you want, the monotonous news anchors of local 24-hour broadcasts are brought to life by the jolting immediacy of breaking news.

 _An explosion, yes, thank you, I_ _ **know**_ _that._

"The majority of National City _knows_ that," you mutter, eyes focussed with rapt attention, scanning the crawls at the bottoms of the screens.

" _We're getting information now that what appears to be a gas line has exploded outside St. Francis Academy on Roseland Avenue in National City. No word yet on injuries or casualties, though it has been confirmed that the students of St. Francis were out for recess when the blast occurred."_

Your knees buckle and you suddenly find yourself crouching low, too weak to stand, but too filled with adrenaline and the desire for more information to hit the floor. You're vaguely aware of someone saying your name behind you, Olsen, maybe, but your eyes remain fixed on the screens in front of you.

Multiple stations have gone live to their mobile teams, and your heart repeats a beat when you see a streak of red and blue hurtling across four screens, rocketing through the sky behind oblivious talking heads.

For a moment, you stop breathing.

None of the camera operators react quickly enough to follow the blur, but news anchors fill you in on where it– _she_ –landed.

" _Supergirl has arrived! She's bypassed the fire. She's left it to burn? She's on the playground. There's too much smoke to make out what's happening."_

It's been seconds, but it feels like hours or _days_ have been shaved off of your life before the phone you've been unconsciously trying to crush rings in your hand, loud and obnoxious.

 _Kara Danvers_ , the caller identification reads.

You answer. Out of habit or hope, you're not sure, but you accept the call from the assistant who, last you saw, was typing steadily away at her desk. A quick glance tells you that she's no longer there, though it's more of a confirmation than anything else.

" _Miss Grant? Can you hear me?"_

Her voice is muffled, and you can hear the crackles and pops of an inferno. You can't seem to get your vocal cords to work, to tell her you're listening.

" _Miss Grant? I've got Carter."_

You don't say anything, but the sudden release of the breath you didn't know you'd been holding seems to be confirmation enough that you've heard her.

" _He's okay. Cat, he's fine. I've got him."_

The unexpected use of your first name sharpens your focus enough for you to force your next words past your lips, breathy and a little bit broken. "Bring him to me."

" _Of course, Miss Grant._ "

You're two steps into getting yourself to the elevator when you hear a soft _whump_ behind you, and the familiar snapping of a cape spins you on your heel not a second later.

"Mom!"

And then Carter is hurtling himself across your office, arms out, his cheeks red and wind chapped under smudges of black soot, and the floor is rising up to meet your knees as gravity and fear are finally allowed to do their jobs.

As you clutch your son to your chest, you look up just in time to see Supergirl twist herself up into the air. She hovers for a second, out there on your balcony, and she meets your eyes. There is no doubt or fear in those blue eyes. Worry, yes, though whether it's about what she's revealed to you in the past three minutes or what she's about to fly back into, you don't know.

"Thank you."

She gives you a short nod and the tiniest of smiles. "Of course, Miss Grant."

And then she's gone.


	2. Panic

**CONFIRMATIONS**

 **Panic**

The glass of bourbon on her desk defies gravity for a split second, and it takes a blink or two for her to register that it was the entire room _shuddering_ , rather than the alcohol in her blood stream, that has caused her to witness such an odd event.

Cat Grant has learned to be wary of structural shudder – they rarely precede any kind of good or acceptable scenarios. And so, with eyebrows furrowed past the point her dermatologist would recommend for the prevention of early onset wrinkles, Cat slowly stands in an effort to at least _appear_ ready to do battle with whom- or whatever has literally caused the (not so literal) earth to move beneath her feet.

There's unexpected movement to her right, creeping in her peripheral vision, and she's quick to snap her head around to stare out into the darkness that is her office balcony. There are very few things that come to mind when some unidentified _thing_ lands on that balcony, and there is only _one_ thing, or person, Cat's pleasantly buzzy brain decides, that could possibly cause such a tremor without being immediately followed by an explosion of some kind.

With a smirk, Cat takes up her glass and saunters ever so casually across her office. She's sliding the door open and is halfway through a wittily sarcastic greeting when she realizes that the figure, whose cape is usually swaying in the breeze, is not actually upright. In fact, Supergirl is all but crumpled on the concrete, one hand bracing herself against a chair, the other pulling at the neckline of her suit.

"Supergirl?"

Blue eyes, familiar in colour but altogether unrecognizable in their current state of, what is it, panic? Those eyes lock onto Cat's own, and in that moment, as she's hastily setting her glass down, Cat feels completely sober.

"I can't– I can't br– Miss Grant… Help." The girl, the _woman,_ at Cat Grant's feet is gasping, all but clawing at her own chest. A chest that is expanding and contracting far too quickly to be anything other than desperate.

The steady _whoosh_ of useless breaths is turning to wheezes, and Cat drops to her knees. Her hands go to Supergirl's shoulders, pushing her back, upright, trying to understand what's happening.

"Supergirl." Cat runs her hands across the front of the suit, then around to the back and up and down the woman's spine, her fingers searching for something to grab, to pull, to _release_. Supersuits, it would appear, require instruction booklets, and she's unable to find what she's looking for.

Supergirl's breathing turns ragged and she's choking on her words, maybe understanding what Cat's fumbling hands are looking for, but unable to verbalize a solution.

Cat takes half a second to decide that now is most certainly _not_ the time for keeping up appearances.

"Kiera!" She uses her most annoyed snap, her voice hard and full of sharp edges and _get in here_ _ **now**_ _!_ And maybe just a little panic of her own.

It works. For the briefest of moments.

"How do I get you out of this thing?"

A warm hand covers her own and presses it to a zipper hidden in a spot that was not at all designed for easy access in the event of whatever is currently happening on Cat Grant's balcony.

A quick tug followed by one long pull allows the suit to droop enough that Super– _Kara's_ previously ineffectual clawing is finally able to remove the constricting material from around her chest. She's yanking and pulling, the suit peeling away not unlike a scuba diver's, folding over itself until the sleeves are inside out and hanging loosely at her sides.

Cat sits back on her heels, keeping one hand firmly on Kara's shoulder while the other rests against the side of her neck. She lets her fingers curl around to press gently just below the base of her assistant's skull, to give the panicking woman something solid to focus on while she steadies her breathing. It works for Carter when he has attacks like this, and it's the only thing Cat can think to do in this moment.

Kara's breathing has eased, and Cat allows herself a moment to process.

Kneeling in front of her, nearly half-undressed in a black sports bra doing its best to maintain its wearer's modesty, is an odd visual hybrid of assistant and hero. Kara's hands are gripping Cat's thighs just above her knees, her head is bowed, and her breaths have become much more deliberate. And Cat is almost certain that if she had more than the ambient light coming from her office, she'd see a few more leaves than just the one that is stuck in the tangled hair before her.

"Kara?" A softness has crept into Cat's tone, smoothing the edges and blunting the sharp points. "Kara, are you injured?"

Kara's whispered response is unconvincing at best.

"Kara," Cat says again, allowing one hand to grasp Kara's chin firmly. "Can you look at me?" It crosses her mind, as the pressure of her fingertips guides Kara's chin upwards, that there's no way in the world that she can physically force Kara to do anything. She wonders, briefly, if Kara _wants_ her to be able to move her, or if she's just conditioned herself so thoroughly in the ways of reacting as a human would that being moveable is as natural to her as it is to everyone else. She wonders if, as a stubborn teenager, Kara's foster parents had been met with granite rather than this pliability. _Had Kara even_ been _a stubborn teenager?_

When blue eyes finally meet her own, Cat is concerned by the sadness they hold. She swallows the concern. "Are you _hurt_ , Kara?"

"No." A slow blink follows, and before Cat can squint her disbelief, Kara is qualifying her answer with, "Not physically, anyway."

Cat remains silent, lets her fingers move gently along her assistant's jaw before dropping both hands into her own lap.

"I think… I think I had a panic attack?"

It's so clearly a question that Cat can't help but to raise an eyebrow. "Mm, yes, that sounds about right. What with the," she lets one hand flutter through the air, " _panicking_."

"Did you call me Kara?"

Cat can practically _feel_ her adrenaline-fueled sobriety cracking under the force of her eye roll. "Yes, _Kara_ , I did."

Cat expects a rebuttal, expects stammering excuses, expects _something_ other than the soft sigh she gets. And then she is reminded that she is sitting on her balcony–literally, her ass is _on the concrete floor_ of her balcony–with her assistant's hands pressing against her thighs. Her assistant whose breathing is still somewhat laboured, and whose eyes haven't quite returned from their previously wild state. Her assistant who is wilting before her and–

"Kara?"

It's soft, the way her forehead finds a home against Cat's clavicle.

"I'm so tired."

A puff of warm air rolls across exposed skin, and Cat brings a hand up to rest against against messy blonde hair. "What can I do?"

Cat feels it before she registers the sound of it. The wry chuckle, exhausted as it is, sends a tremor through her sternum as it travels from Kara's body to her own.

"I don't know. Let me stay here for a bit?" The words are muffled, but the tone Kara's voice carries is clear.

Shifting herself as smoothly as possible, _thank you, yoga_ , Cat settles into a more comfortable position. She holds her hand away from Kara's head as she shifts to better fit their new arrangement. "Of course."


End file.
